burdensome stone

12:3 burdensome stone. For many centuries, Jerusalem and its people have been “an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations” (Deuteronomy 28:37), “a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places” (Jeremiah 24:9). But “in that day,” it will become “a burdensome stone” to all these peoples, and God will judge the nations in relation to their treatment of Israel. Many such nations have already been judged (ancient Assyria, imperial Rome, Czarist Russia, Nazi Germany). The kingdom of the Beast will have its turn as well.